Ep.74 Does smoking help teenagers lose weight?

One of the teenagers I work with asked me, “Does smoking help you lose weight?”
It’s a common myth—and the science says no.

In this episode, I dive into a powerful study of over 1,000 teenagers that looked at the connection between smoking, weight loss attempts, and nutrition. What it found is shocking: many normal-weight teenage girls who tried to lose weight were twice as likely to start smoking.

🚭 You’ll learn:

• Why this myth is so common among teenagers
• What the data says about smoking, BMI, and weight loss
• How smoking habits cluster with poor nutrition and alcohol use
• Why we must talk to teenagers about healthy habits early

🎧 Tune in to bust this myth and learn how to support your teen the healthy way.

🎁 Free recipe guide: lifestyleforteens.com/recipes

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Transcript

one of the teenagers I was working with asked me, does smoking help me lose weight or no? Did you know that some normal weight teenage girls are more than twice as likely to start smoking if they're trying to lose weight?

This was an interesting study that was done a few years ago in 2001, and actually gave evidence to the fact that there is this   📍 misconception among teenagers that if they're trying to get to a healthier weight and they smoke, then they can lose weight.  So the actual title of this manuscript is   📍 Smoking and Weight Loss Attempts in Overweight and Normal Weight Adolescence. 

It was published in 2001, and what this study did is they had, several hundreds of teenagers that they actually ask them about their smoking habits. And not only did they ask them about the smoking habits,   📍  📍 they actually took a blood sample and measured the nicotine levels.  So there was like a 1032 teenagers between the ages of 12 to 18 years old.  📍 

And   📍 they also asked them about the smoking, if they're trying to lose weight, what was their height and weight? They calculated their body mass index  which is a measurement of whether they have extra weight or normal weight. If you wanna know what is a BMI and how to calculate your bm, the BMI for your teenager, you can go to episode one of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for teens podcast.

But in summary, BMI is a tool that scientists use to tell how much weight whether a teenager has a normal weight or is overweight.

  📍 What the researchers found was that  teenage girls that were normal weight. They were trying to get to a healthier weight they were trying to lose weight. They were twice more likely to start smoking compared to, or actually teenagers were twice more likely to smoke than teenagers who had normal weight and they were not trying to lose weight. On the other hand they looked at teenagers that they were overweight and they found no differences in the overweight smoking teenagers who were trying to lose weight or who were not trying to lose weight.

Now, what is more interesting is that they also looked at other healthy habits that are, were associated with a smoking habit.   📍 So what they found was that teenagers that were smoking were eating less fruits and vegetables, and they also found that teenagers that were smoking, they also had more alcohol. 

Now they also evaluated what kind of diet the teenagers were doing, and they found that   📍 teenagers who were smoking actually had poor diets.  Now this is as I mentioned, one of the biggest study in teenagers that showed this association of increased smoking with unhealthy habits of less fruits, less vegetables, more alcohol, less healthy choices, and more importantly, the girls that were smoking were not different than the girls that were not smoking and they were trying to lose weight. So smoking does not work as a method to decrease the weight in teenagers. That is what this study suggests. And another takeaway from this study is that when, teenagers have this misconception that if you start smoking, you will lose weight.

Because when people, adults stop smoking, then there is a an associated 3-5 kilograms weight loss weight gain. So it is true that there is weight gain associated with smoking cession, but the opposite is not true. If you are not, if you are smoking, that doesn't lead to weight loss.

If you stop smoking, you, there may be weight regain because as a method to overcome this addiction, a lot of people turn to food to satisfied the emotional reasons that led to smoking. The first place. It's a different mechanism versus if you're gaining weight versus if you are losing weight.

Now also what is important from takeaway from this study is also that, there are other studies that showed over time in adults, in people that were smoking versus people that were not smoking. Over time, there was the same weight gain in people that were smoking versus people that were not smoking.

It doesn't also prevent the overtime weight gain that is associated with aging in adults. We did not have data from this particular study in adolescence on what happens over time. But this is a good take home message that not only it doesn't. L smoking not only doesn't lead to weight loss, but it also doesn't prevent weight gain in the future.

So if you're a teenager listening to this and you're smoking in an effort to lose weight, it doesn't work. And the question is. What is another alternative? My approach to alternative is to build healthy habits that are sustainable and give you not only healthy weight, but they're also   📍 preventing you from doing cardiovascular disease that is associated with smoking, high cholesterol, strokes and heart attacks in the future, lung disease, cancer, and all those things.  So the easiest and healthier approach for weight loss in teenagers would be to build a healthy lifestyle that is associated with healthy habits, good nutrition, fruits and vegetables, limited processed food, limiting sugar, increasing the exercise, sleeping more, and managing your emotions.  📍 

If you want to get 30 free recipes that are high in protein and can be ready in less than 30 minutes for teenagers, you can go to   📍  📍 lifestyleforteens.com/recipes  to download that free resource, and you can also check on free resources for some other free help.  📍 I hope that was helpful. I'll talk to you soon.